If the fact itself were not
at odds with most of my hopes
for human life, I’d want
to know why sex was always best
when I stood to lose the most.
Why make its charms so devilishly
proximal to risk?
The patterns ought to favor
children’s best protection—not
one parent hardened and one hurt;
one predator, one weak. But nurturance
appeared to have no part
in our old fastest appetites—our grappling hooks
and eye-meats. Well, a mortally afflicted tree
will scatter seed. That’s nature’s way
of furthering its kind. In my own
sixties (here where issue’s not the issue—
not unless I go to Delhi for
an embryo implant, and let me tell you
I am not that nuts)—here newly
sixtified, I say, I’d settle for
a kindness: tender looks not
tenterhooks; a cuddle,
not a cattle-prod. Dear god,
you made me pull away from every
club and strut and hoe. Don’t now
on my account, sweet chariot,
swing so damn low.